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Dessert

Interstate Fruit Salad

A fruit salad of oranges, peaches, strawberries, pineapple, and corn topped with whipped cream and a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Interstate Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel the oranges and slice them very thin crosswise.

  2. Peel and cut the peaches into quarters.

  3. Hull and wash the strawberries.

  4. Cut off the outside of the pineapple and cut it into small cubes lengthwise.

Make the cream and sauce

  1. Whip the cream with the milk until stiff, then add the powdered sugar and vanilla extract.

  2. Mix the cornstarch and granulated sugar together.

  3. Pour the boiling water over the sugar mixture, stirring continuously, and cook for 5 minutes.

  4. Flavor the sauce with wine or extract, then let it cool before pouring over the salad.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the fruit artistically in a glass salad bowl.

  2. Garnish the top with whipped cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Peach + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Pineapple + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Peach + pineappletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Whipped to stiffness, it forms the light, airy topping for the salad.
Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling sugar and water into a glossy, pourable sauce.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps stabilise its texture when cooked.
Navel oranges
Add bright citrus acidity and juicy texture to balance the sweetness.
Peaches
Contribute juicy sweetness and soft texture to the fruit mix.

The step that matters

Cooking the cornstarch sauce. Cornstarch must be heated in boiling liquid to swell and thicken. Stir constantly so it does not lump or scorch, and let it cool before pouring so it does not melt the cream or wilt the fruit.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peach, pineapple, corn, cream, milk, sugar, vanilla):

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, pineapple, corn, cream, milk, sugar, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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